Large areas of the world's land surface have been more or less seriously degraded by mankind. This book's 18 chapters describe aspects of such ‘Anthroscapes’, drawn mainly from countries around the Mediterranean Sea.

Although ‘sustainability’ is invoked – as if a mantra – throughout the book, it is not clearly defined, nor its ecological bases acknowledged (save a brief mention on p. 140 and intimated in more detail in the sixteenth chapter, from Japan). Therefore, routes to follow in remediating past damage and to making future uses of land more conservation-effective, are not clearly identifiable. Had this ecological focus been apparent from the beginning of the book, the possibilities for lasting improvements in future could have been implicit when reading the varied chapters which followed.

I looked forward to reviewing a book with a title so relevant to today's need. But the contents don't fulfil the promise of the title. It is a ‘hotch-potch’ of information from which no clear conclusions or recommendations for effective action have been, or can be, drawn, except what not to do.

There is no glossary; there are uncorrected spelling mistakes and evident errors of fact (e.g. pp. 132 and 140). Also, legends for diagrams on pp. 340, 343, 344, 389–391 have been wrongly allocated among them. Many of the illustrations (both photos and diagrams) were originally in colour. Rendering them in grey-scales throughout the book diminishes their visual impact and value.

This book was evidently rushed to publication before the editors had completed their work.